Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Good looking GT R

2 comments:

In the mid nineties, a friend of mine and I went on a shopping spree. One week end we brought home a 1965 Prince Skyline GT-B. Light grey 1 owner, with all its books and papers from new. Totally original, It was literally a 'little old lady's car'. Being a true skeptic I checked. The name she signed on the receipt matched the name in the owners manual and it even had 1" blocks of steel fitted under the front seat mounts because she was so short. The cylinder head was taken off in 1978, (the year her husband died) due to an overheating issue and sat dry in the trunk with A box of all the factory engine and carb parts for a rebuild. Plus spare doors, fenders, hood, grill and trunk for the 'Princely' sum of $800.It impressed the hell out of me for what it was. 2 liter, 6 cyl SOHC engine with 3x40mm weber DCOE carbs.Huge sway bars front and rear, ventilated disc brakes on the front and finned alloy drums on the rear with a forged alloy front loader limited slip diff centre.The fuel tank was mounted behind the rear seat above the floor, and had a 4" opening with a rubber cap at the top. This opening lined up with a step in the trunk lid frame. If you clipped away the sheet metal, you could 'dump' fuel directly into the tank.Full instrumented dash panel with alloy centered wheel with faux timber rim. Bucket seats and five speed manual close ratio gearbox on the floor.I still have one of the numbered Prince ignition keys for that car.

Two weeks later, we went out and bought two more. A '66 and a '67. One was running and had done some racing, the '67 was an excellent parts car. Again, $800.

They were sold in '09 for three grand each, even then very few people knew or cared what they were and we thought we did well.